


No Journey is ever Smooth Sailing all the Way

by The Curator of The Sands (GrimRevolution)



Series: Voltron Whump Week 2017 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Sorry didn't have time to write the comfort whoops, Voltron Whump Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 06:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/The%20Curator%20of%20The%20Sands
Summary: Sometimes people get hurt. It's just something that you have to live with.But it's hard to watch your teammates go down.Even though you know she can take it.Voltron Whump Week 2017 Prompts. All Focused on Pidge (cause I'm a sucker, sue me.)





	No Journey is ever Smooth Sailing all the Way

Planets weren't normally too bad on the human body—which was weird, Pidge figured, seeing that earth was actually pretty strange with its oxygen breathing carbon beings that slowly burned up from the inside—but this one? This one was nasty.

Allura had called it Hebleyphus which sounded way too closed to "Heebie Jeebies" for anyone other than Shiro and Keith to feel comfortable. It was a forest planet; a place with trees that grew so tall their tops vanished into the clouds with water that was mostly hidden within an underground tunneling system. Occasionally, those tunnels burst, like the pipes in a house, but Coran said that they weren't near any of the known flooding areas.

The team had separated to try and find where the constant beeping distress signal was coming from but the amount of organisms and something about the metallic nature of the five moons and the planet's core was making the instruments fuzz and static. By the time it had cleared up, the signal was coming from somewhere else and they had to start all over again. 

The humidity, thankfully, didn't puncture the Paladin armor but that didn't mean that Pidge felt like her face wasn't melting or that he hair was trying to become one with her skin. Sweat, water, and whatever else was in the air was clinging to her and she almost activated the face guard for the helmet just so that she could breathe in peace.

But stuck on a space ship for so long with circulated air was often stagnated, even for her, and Pidge took another deep breath of the fresh oxygen Hebleyphus was smothered in. 

" _No luck in area 5b, moving to 6b,_ " Lance's voice came through, just barely, over the headset. Pidge winced away from the sound as the static burst and fluttered like a firework.

" _Copy that,_ " Shiro said. " _Keith, what's your status?_ "

There was a moment of quiet before the red paladin's voice burst through and was loud enough that Pidge almost ripped off her helmet before the system recalibrated to the noise level. 

" _Having difficulty with the tracker over here, seems to be a lot of interference. I'll have to move to higher ground._ "

" _Ten-Four._ "

Pidge stumbled over a vine thick enough to replace her thigh and cursed, kicked it a couple of times, and continued to stomp through the underbrush. Some of the leaves were bigger than her, and water had gathered in the valleys so when she pushed them up and away from her face, the water spilled down over her head. Some managed to sneak in underneath the neckline of her suit and she hissed like a cat and did what she could to wipe it away. 

The tracker in her hand buzzed and she glanced down at it, finding the red dot a little to her left rather than straight ahead where it had been for the past couple of minutes. Taking in a deep breath, she headed that way, stepping and climbing over what she could, ducking under the higher things, and then walking around the rest.

A bug with eight legs and two clear wings buzzed past her face, it's eyes the size of her thumbnails and stinger the length of her pinky. She slapped it away with her bayard and the sound was like a moth in a bug catcher—only louder and... s _tuff_ exploded outward and splattered across the chest of her armor. 

" _Gross_ ," She muttered and stepped around the mess, heading further into the jungle. Something cackled, like one of those plastic teeth chomping toys, and her hand tightened around the bayard. The leaves rustled somewhere behind her and Pidge straightened her shoulders and kept walking, eyes on the tracking device. 

The sooner someone found it, the sooner they could all get back to the Castle. At this point, it was probably underneath them, travelling through the massive network of tunnels underneath the surface of the planet and they would never really find it unless they went diving for it--

"Quiznak!" Pidge hit the forest floor, stumbling upon the decomposing old leaves and the damp soil. Her hands sunk into the dirt and she glared back at the vines that had wrapped around her ankle. "Don't have  _time_  for this," she muttered and sliced through the plants with her bayard before slowly getting back up to her feet.

" _Pidge?_ " Shiro sounded concerned, " _everything okay_?"

She rolled her shoulders and took in another deep breath. "Yeah," Pidge said, "yeah, just got caught by surprise."

There was an incline and she heard Shiro saying something about everyone to be a bit careful as there were some plants with some thick thorns and just to make sure that they were keeping themselves clear and their eyes open. Pidge was too busy not to slip, the soil turning muddy and sticking to her calves and slowly working its way up to her knees. It was the fine, grainy kind of stuff; the one that sinks into every crack and crevice. 

Her foot hit a rock and Pidge was off balance again, landing on her back and slid like a lopsided turtle with another very undignified yelp. Trees passed around her, their branches too far for her to grab. By the time she managed to get her bayard focused at a tree, the jetpack caught on something, jerking her to a stop just a couple of feet before where the ground evened out. The Bayard went flying out of her hand and managed to slide all the way down before coming to stop. 

Pidge squirmed, kicking out and trying to find leverage to get unhooked only for her feet to slide through the mud until she was digging a hole with her heels. "Damn it," of all the times to get stuck, it had to be this. She stopped moving and laid there in the mud, the slight cold seeping into her armor. "I hate this planet," she said to the sky.

Someone laughed over the comms before stifling the sound and Pidge scowled. She felt like a pug trying to roll over and tried to reach back at what caught her only to wince as pain shot through her left shoulder. "Great," she muttered, "just fan- _flipping_ -tastic."

With very little options left, Pidge, hoping that the heat wouldn't just burn her backside and leave her with embarrassing scars around her buttocks for the rest of her life, activated the jetpack. The mud gurgled and clung to her before she shot up and out of it with a gross sounding slurp.  She hit the mud further up and started to slide down again only this time she managed to guide her body around the place she had gotten stuck so she could shoot past it and hit the ground beside her bayard with an  _oof_. 

"I hate this planet," she told the green and white device. "I hate it a lot."

It didn't reply like she was kind of hoping it would and Pidge grunted, rolled over onto her stomach, and pushed herself to her feet. Mud was caked up and down every part of her body. The former white armor was stained brown, black, and green and some squishy sludge even managed to sneak into the space between her underclothes and the armor and stuck there no matter how much she tried to pry it out.

This place was the  _worst_. Absolute worst. 1/10 would not return again. She couldn't even wipe the mud on her face away with how much was also sticking to her hands. Clumps were in her hair and stuck to her forehead and the back of her neck. Some had gotten behind her ears, even more was across her cheeks. 

"Fucking  _gross_ ," she muttered.

No one responded that time and Pidge took a step. She had sunk a little while standing there, and pulling her foot out was a struggle in itself but even then, she sunk again into the ground. There was still a cold feeling against her back where she had been laying and Pidge tried to work her way to drier ground. Her feet slipped again and she managed to keep her balance but Hebleyphus  swayed. 

"Oh," Pidge breathed and took a step back to try and get her balance back only to fall down on her butt again. Her fingers dug into the mud and Pidge blinked at her bayard that had, at some point, fell to the ground.

She couldn't remember dropping it. 

Something in her brain was trying to tell her something, but it was like the wires weren't connecting and fizzled out before they could ever be completed. 

" _Pidge?_ " Shiro's voice interrupted the buzzing in her head and she looked up as if expecting him to be there.

He wasn't.

The sound that came out of her throat must have been worrying enough because his next words were "stay where you are" and how "Keith's closest". Her stomach jerked, though, and rose up into her ribcage like a fleeing cat and Pidge leaned forward and put her head over her knees. 

It helped, a little, but she panted, mouth open with saliva dripping down on her thighs and stared with glazed eyes at the mud. Swirling greens and browns made her sway a little bit too far to the left and it took almost physical effort not to fall over and balance herself back up again.

" _Hold on, Pidge,_ " Keith was telling her, his voice still like a buzzing fly in her ear, " _I'm coming_."

"Okay" she tried to say but it came out as something that was more like "uh huh" with a mix of a groan that belonged to someone whose soul was trying to physically leave their body through their eyes. She tried to close her mouth and that just made everything worse so she went back to panting instead. The world twisted and flipped like a pancake but she at least managed to stay sitting up until a hand landed on her shoulder.

"Pidge?" Keith kneeled down in front of her, his dark eyes wide as she looked up. "Hey," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and she realized she had been swaying, "what happened?"

Opening her mouth, Pidge tried to answer. She really,  _really_  did. No sound decided to come out of her throat and Keith sighed, wrapped his fingers around the base of her helmet, and started to pull it up. She groaned and felt it squeeze up and over her head before coming off with a wet plop. 

"She looks bad," the red paladin spoke into the comms and brushed her hair and the mud away from her face and flinched back before pressing the back of his gloved hand to her forehead. "Shit," he hissed, "shit, shit,  _shit_." Keith gathered up her helmet and bayard, shoved them into her loose arms, and then hooked an arm under her legs and across her back. He lifted slowly, pulling Pidge out of the mud and up to his chest.

"Hey, hey," he said softly when she groaned and pushed against the red V. "I got you, it's fine."

Pidge groaned and her stomach pushed its way up into her throat. She shoved against his chest and leaned over, vomiting whatever she had eaten for breakfast into the mud. The moment she was done, though, Keith had her pressed firmly to his chest and was moving again. 

They avoided the hill entirely (a good choice) and Keith was making his way back towards drier ground when every muscle in the green paladin tensed up and she howled as pain went down her spine and settled over the flare of her hips before shooting back up again. Fingers clawed at white metal, catching on the grooves and dips before she slammed the flat of her palm against it. 

"It's okay!" Keith yelled, partially between panic and frustration. "Pidge!  _Pidge_!"

His arm was pressed against her back and there was  _fire_  blazing through her ribcage and her lungs froze under the heat, unable to take in a breath as the pain flared again and again and  _again_. 

" _What's going on?!_ "

Keith grunted as her hand struck him on the chin, "I dunno!" Keeping his head away from her flailing hands, the red paladin did his best to keep her steady even as he was lowering her to the ground, "I dunno, she's just—" he pulled back and froze, breath hitching. "Oh  _shit_."

" _What? What is it? Keith?_ "

"She's bleeding, I gotta—" 

Pidge howled as he touched her again and jerked as if his hand was a cattle prod. Everything was burning, everything  _hurt_. She didn't want him to touch her, she didn't want anything except for the burning to go away and for everything to just  _stop_. Broken sobs ripped through her throat and something wet was dripping down her cheeks, over her jaw, and down her neck.

Keith had to move her though and she gasped and whimpered and  _sobbed_  as he tilted her forward to look over her back. Something had pierced the metal armor, right under the jetpack, and had ripped downwards to her hips ending at the small of her back. Blood was oozing through, mixing dangerously with the sludge.

"No,  _no, no, no_ —" Pidge tried to move away as he touched his fingers gently on either side of the wound.

Thick yellow pus dripped out and he wrenched backwards. Infections normally took at least a couple of days—this one had happened in less than an hour. 

" _Shit_ ," Keith hissed and pulled the black part of her suit to the side just to look. 

Pidge turned with a snarl and hit him—elbow to shoulder. Grunting, Keith lurched back and grabbed the bone she had hit, rubbing it sourly even as she straightened, keeled over, and vomited across the ground.

The next time, when she hit him, Keith kept moving forward, ignoring the shoves, the scratching, and the hits that were getting weaker each time she moved. He wrapped her back up in his arms and  _ran._  There was a noise in the helmet and over the comms but neither answered—Pidge, clawing at the paladin armor and trying to shove herself away from the  _pain_ _pain_ _pain_  and Keith who was too busy sucking in breaths and keeping an eye out for the lions. 

A gasping sob jerked through Pidge's body, racking across her ribs and she pressed her cheek against Keith's chest even though every single one of his steps made her flinch. He raised the arm pressed against her spine to cup the back of her head in his palm, holding her there as firmly as he could without being too harsh to cause her even more pain. 

Trees groaned and cracked and the muzzle of the red lion burst between the trees, mouth opening so Keith could run up the ramp. He slipped on the metal and the lion growled and tilted its head just enough that his shoulder slammed into the wall but he managed to keep on his feet. Pidge whimpered and he set her in his lap just in time for the machine to shoot up into the sky. Leather seats made it difficult enough to stay still, especially in metal armor, but everything  _wet_  just made the whole thing worse. 

"Hold on," Keith tucked Pidge's head under his chin and pulled her in closer as she shivered. Her brown eyes were glazed over, hair sticking up in every direction, face Microsoft Word document white. Her breathing was steadier now that they had stopped moving and it was the lion who was rumbling beneath them, but tear trails had been carved into the mud on her cheeks. 

The skin of her forehead was blazing against his neck, hotter than each humid breath that brushed across his skin. 

Keith brushed his arm over her spine and she whined. The mud caked against her back was already drying, but something warm and wet still stuck to his clove. "Shh," he urged as the red lion rose above the clouds and past the outer layers of the atmosphere. Against the black expanse of space, the Castle looked like a snowball. 

Red landed in the hanger and lowered her head for the Paladins. Keith hurried out and down, almost tripping over his own feet until he slid into Coran who had been waiting for them. Pidge gasped and whined in his arms, pressing her face further into his armor.

"Sorry," Keith said, the word directed both to the girl in his arms and the Altean.

"Oh, that's quite alright," Coran said, reaching out to take the trembling green paladin from Keith and managed to balance her, somehow, against his chest with one arm. To be fair, though, Pidge looked achingly small against the Altean, and it didn't help that she had curled in on herself.  "I'll take her from here, Keith," a hand rested on the red Paladin's shoulder and Coran patted him kindly before turning around and heading outside the hanger.

Keith watched them go, tension still boiling around his shoulders and neck before he looked down at his arm.

Blood was smeared across the white armor, dripping down to the hangar floor. "Yeah," he said softly. 

**Author's Note:**

> In between the zines and big bangs  
> a single author screams for help  
> as she drowns
> 
> (I LIKE PAIN GIMMIE PAIN BUT GOD THIS FANDOM DOES EVERYTHING IN AUGUST YA'LL NEED TO CALM THE FUCK DOWN)  
> I should mention that these will all be unrelated.
> 
> P.S. I've decided to make each one it's own story not just to keep them separated but to just keep the tags different for each.


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